By Mikayla Schramm, Santa Fe, Texas

Circus animals are enslaved, tortured and made to perform dangerous tricks against their will. All you have to do is look at circus animals and you can see how very sad they are. They have a blank look because they have no spirit. They are empty shells of what were once magnificent creatures. Circus workers know the animal cruelty laws but they disobey them and the USDA hardly ever does anything about it. Circus workers say they love their animals but they don't because they beat and torture them. They lie about how cruel they are to the poor animals.

Imagine how you would feel if you had to watch your mother being beaten every day. What if you had to see and hear her wailing, crying and begging for mercy while the people you hate beat her? Imagine how hopeless you would feel if you couldn't help her.

Circus tigers and elephants never get to swim in pools, monkeys never get to climb trees or stay in a troop and bears never have the comfort of a den. Babies are never with their mothers for very long and they are taken away before they are weaned so they feel extremely lonely. Circus animals never have the choice of what they are going to eat or when they will be able to move. Circus elephants are chained, they don't even get to lie down to sleep and they look like zombies. I have cried thinking about the horrible abuse circus animals have to go through every day. They all have to perform their tricks without consent or pay and they never get to retire. They just die an agonizing death or get killed. It's terrible elephants and other animals are in circuses, my heart aches for them.